Jack Saddler, Dean and Professor, Faculty of Forestry, UBC
As we celebrate 50 years as a Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia we reflect on our past and contemplate how we build and strengthen our future. What better way to look to the future than to bring together a small group of forest education leaders from around the globe to assess the state of forest education internationally and where we, as forest educators and researchers, can make major continuing contributions.
To recognise the constantly evolving definition of what constitutes Forestry, we, in conjunction with our colleagues at the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, invited many of our colleagues who had responsibility for defining and delivery of forestry educational programs at the Universities around the world to meet immediately after the celebratory event.
From these discussions, it has become clear that there is both a need and an opportunity to explore ways to collaborate together on international forest issues. As it evolves, forestry is redefining itself, and through this redefinition, the very nature of what the term "forestry" represents is changing. As leaders in forest education we need to communicate the changes we believe are taking place, we need to reach out to those who still hold images of what forestry was and show them all it has become and where we hope in the future to be.
It is not enough to just educate any longer, we must, through international cooperation and as individual entities, actively share our knowledge and attract the attention of students and the public alike to the range of options available through stewardship of forests and the values they maintain.
I hope that this report will be the starting point to help catalyze the formation of a formal association of forestry educational institutions. We hope to organize several follow up meetings to continue discussion and create a framework of collaboration across a number of different fronts.
I hope that these proceedings will help catalyze the formation of a formal association of Forestry Educational Institutions, with close and formal ties to FAO and groups such as IUFRO. We are in the process of organising several follow-up meetings with a mid-term goal of reconvening a similar group to meet at FAO in Rome.
If you would like to become part of the proposed "Network of Forestry Educational Institutes (NFEI) please contact Ms. Sandra Schinnerl, Associate Director International Forestry Programs, UBC (email:[email protected]) who will be acting as the interim secretariat.
I want to thank Dr. Hosny El-Lakany (FAO) and Yvan Hardy (Assistant Deputy Minister, Canadian Forest Service) for catalyzing and supporting the concept of this meeting, and my colleagues at UBC, especially Sandra Schinnerl, for making this idea of an inaugural meeting a reality.
